


Bitter Fruit

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jealousy, M/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4219545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those hopes had stayed with him, ragged and faithful, until the last of those days in Spain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter Fruit

**Author's Note:**

> He wanted so much and got so little. Hornblower on the other hand...
> 
> Set during/post The Duchess and the Devil.

He left early on a blue morning, stepping out the door and not turning to look behind him until he had reached the very edge of land; until he was ready to leave that, too. This was a new life: he was to be a lieutenant and one day, a captain. He had rows of gold on his chest and thick blue wool on his back, and it meant something, something much more than finery or wealth.

Hard work and quick thinking, duty, a little luck and a little courage: that was what was needed. The luck for being missed by shot but not by the captain; the courage for lonely days and bad dreams. One day he would return home and have stories to tell, and when the stories were done, he would have nights by the fire knowing he had achieved something, knowing that he had served and that he had lived.

Those hopes had stayed with him, ragged and faithful, until the last of those days in Spain. Then, a hot morning, the sun already high in the sky; the soldiers hauled him from the pit and he had let them go. After that he felt lighter, as if the insides of him had been emptied out and lost to the sea.

He should have realised, though, that what the tide takes from one shore it gives to another. One night he looked up and found his old friend above him, his old and brilliant friend watching him with deep dark eyes, and he realised those hopes had not gone far at all.

Everything he wanted, everything that had once lived in his chest and beat hard on his bones; there it was. All in Hornblower's hands.


End file.
